Honour Christmas In Your Heart (A piece of Flash Fiction for Interzone Advent Calendar)

This has been written for the TTA Press Advent Calendar of Flash Fiction.  This story was published last year and I'd have hated to miss out on my second year.

---

The LED bulb flickered unhealthily; a blot upon the otherwise perfect, yet sadly already tangled string of diligently soldered, centuries old scrap. Fi flicked at it, hoping against hope that some physical assault might quickly nurse it to health. It blinked silently into a silicon afterlife. She pulled a face.

“Now, how did it go again?” she asked herself before delicately clearing her throat.

#Once in loyal David’s city stood a lovely cattle shed...

Her melody was strong, thanks to the carefully resurrected tube-vid she’d pulled from a long dead server. The words, alas, were only an approximation and she had spent too many nights wondering to whom David had been loyal and what exactly made the shed lovely . As for cattle...she was clueless.

Nonetheless, her thesis was progressing wonderfully. Winter Festivals of the Ancients (Christmas to Winterval and beyond) was approximately the requisite word count and Fi was only left to complete the practical elements which would undoubtedly clinch the qualification she had been working towards for the last three years.

But most of all, she felt an overwhelming desire to share in the ceremonies she had studied for so long. Pudding, cracker, tinsel...words so resonant in onomatopoeia, they followed her ceaselessly with an echo which, she’d have sworn, sounded exactly like how Sleigh Bells should.

“Ho ho ho.” she said, gravely, as one might intone ‘Here goes nothing...’

She picked up the lights and carried them reverently to her tree. This had been her greatest find. The polyvinyl chloride-covered branches had survived the years perfectly, even when the box around it had slowly mouldered into a sticky dust. The lights were carefully draped over all seven foot of the plucky little piece of ancient history, glowing gently in their inductive current. Fi’s father, who had first installed in his little daughter a love for all things ancient, had contributed the star, which he had painstakingly worked in pieces of multi-coloured plastic-sheathed wires. It certainly gave some vibrancy to the deep-green monolith.

But it just wasn’t right. Even with the lights and the star, it was missing something. She had given up almost immediately at the idea of tinsel – some kind of amorphous caterpillar of metallic explosions – far beyond her skill to replicate. And besides, she’d read the hallowed words of J Asher who pronounced it ‘tacky’. And getting anything sticky on her beloved tree was not going to happen.

She knew what was needed, but, again, the solution was beyond her ability to manufacture. A little old-fashioned electronics, no problems. But crafting the tiny glass spheres, not to mention turning them into miniature galaxies of glitter was impossible. She sighed, gesturing to cut the current, and picked up her coat which she'd left slumped over her work bench. The red felt clamped tightly against her body in sympathy and she felt the pick-ups link and warm against her. Connected, she ventured out into the cold, deciding that a walk away from her obsession might allow an answer to be found.

-

Most Highly Flavoured Gravy. She could almost taste it, sweet and rich. It helped counteract the cloying, bitter pollution sweeping around her. She could feel the static charge in her clothes working hard to repel the grimy onslaught. The nape of her neck tingled.

She followed the path, weaving through the university buildings. She was well beyond the halls of history, old, dilapidated structures of steel and glass. She looked enviously at the newly constructed, shiny ceramic palace looming up at her through the clouds of chemicals. Those pompous xeno-biologists must have some scandalous information about the Dean, she decided, to have wrangled such an extravagant piece of real-estate.

Fi skirted the new building, muttering as she walked. How like this world, in the grip of a new, self created dark age, to turn its collective back on the wisdom of history and look towards an unknown, alien society for answers. Dark age indeed, she thought, feeling for a terrible moment, extremely lost in the black, noisome night. She looked down at her sleeve and saw the lights project through the fibres, showing her the surroundings in plan view. She’d not come this way before, around the back of the XB building. A huge gust nearly knocked her off her feet, and she hunkered down, imagining herself surrounded by pure, white snow. Walking in the steps of Wenceslas, feeling heat from his heavenly footfall.

There was a tremendous crash and she let out a little scream. Eyes wide open, she was suddenly dazzled by a security light. A huge plastic skip lid had been hurled open in the force of the wind, allowing the top layer of rubbish to fly – broken silicon, soiled plastic bags and even the odd piece of paper cavorting in their escape.

And then she saw them. Even in the fug of fumes and dust and debris, she made out the glimmer. The shine. Every colour of the rainbow...and a few she’d never even seen before.

Her jaw, though not visible under the layers of clothing, was nearly welded to her chest. They were PERFECT! How was it even possible?

She reached in and cradled one sphere in her gloved hands, feeling the delicate perfection of the glittery globe. She felt her heart miss a beat as she said to herself, quietly,

“My baubles!”

-

The skip had held an even thirty of the little shells, each one a different shade and uniquely mottled. Although hard and delicate, like the thinnest ceramic, the top of each shell ended in an organic loop, looking for all the world like the rubbery tail she’d had on an ancient toy pig her father had given her as a child. And it was from these that she hung them.

The tree was now perfect – sparse, certainly, but it didn't look lonely any more. The tree had presence. Warmth. Life.

Fi sat there, entranced. She sang every carol she knew quietly to herself, the reflected sparkle of the tree's lights bright in her dark eyes. Her burnished bronze skin glowed with warmth that came only partially from the tree. Her heart soared.

Christmas was coming!

-

Anyone reading Fi's thesis would have learnt that Christmas had been a festival which bound a large portion of humanity together at the end of each year. This time was characterised by the giving and receiving of gifts, the preparation and eventual consumption (often over the period of several weeks) of a single, large meal, all of which took place in a traditionally adorned space; most often the living quarters of a family unit.

The festival crumbled during the first great energy crisis. With no fossil fuels to produce their plastic toys or power their giant generators, the fragile Christmas of the twenty-second century had collapsed. There was a version, smaller and more intimate, which remained in some of the more self-sufficient areas of eastern Europe. But even there, by the time the cultural war swept the globe, Jolly St Nic was just a random reddish memory.

And this was a tragedy. Fi knew what possibilities Christmas held for her world. She'd stumbled across an ancient text and one line had lept out at her, sinking hooks into her eyes, her brain, her heart.

'I will honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it every day of the year.'

Yes. Every day of the year. And she needed to be a ghost, pointing a finger at her world. This may be our dark future, but look to our glorious shared past! We could be so happy!

-

And, indeed, Fi could well have been correct. For example, the first investigative crew who came to her workshop the following day were impressed by the beautiful tree, standing before it while the lights gleamed. The star shone in a mass of coloured sprays of wire.

It seemed a shame, though, that all the baubles lay shattered on the floor; a mass of delicate flakes, like broken eggshells.

Fi looked rather shell like, her organs torn from a series of jagged wounds in her torso. Her beautiful bronze skin turned a mottled grey. Her sparkly eyes dull. Her carols silent.

If only the crew had known about the terrible mistake made by the nearby xeno-biology team - the alien eggs they had managed to throw out with the metaphorical bath-water. The eggs had been studied, delicately cushioned in thick fleece beddings, and after months of careful examination they had found absolutely nothing. If only they had hung them from their delicate little hooks and showered them in little pin-pricks of light, then their study might not have been in vain.

And if someone had asked the xeno-biologists why these eggs had been studied so carefully, they would have replied that, on a planet so sparse, they were surprised to see any sign of life at all. It was as if everything else had long since been consumed...

-

Some kindly soul would eventually publish Fi's thesis in her memory – the poor student murdered whilst working to make the world a better place. It became an instant best-seller, rekindling an interest in ancient festivals and the ways one might decorate their dwelling appropriately. A factory was set up manufacturing exquisitely designed fake trees. The tips of their needles were made to glow, negating the need for powered lights. And people, always on the look out for a freebee, were very pleased to come across what looked like baubles, often left in the dark corners of alleyways. Gratefully, people picked them up and bought them back home. They would hang them on the branches of their trees and sing, quietly to each other.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

PlyPi Plans

For a long time now, people have been asking for the plans to the PlyPi.  I'm afraid life (and all that entails) has got in the way.  But now, behold!  I've got the plans scanned into a PDF file.  They even seem to print at the right size on my end (which, in my opinion, is as close to a miracle as anything I've ever seen).  So hopefully they will be useful to you.




One thing I managed to leave off the accompanying text - it's of course possible to make the PlyPi without an HDMI socket hole.  You might need to adjust the plans a little - but really, the skies are the limit!  Well, they are when you attach a RPi to a weather balloon, anyway...

If you're pleased with the plans, please consider sending a small donation.  It might not seem much, but it might make a huge difference to me.

Anyway, have fun!


The PlyPi Plan

BADD2013: Demi-Wife (3/3)

All the time that I've spent thinking about writing this blog post, I have had The Decemberists 'Crane Wife' in my head. As such, I suggest you give it a listen as you read (or see the lyrics here and here).

As much as the tech I've written about makes me a very lucky chap indeed, there's something that makes me even luckier. It makes a lottery win look mundane. A narrow escape from a sticky end seem every day. A large portion of chips when you only ordered a regular...well...perhaps it's on a par with that.

What am I talking about? Well, I am now (sort of) Mr Goldfish. Deborah and I recently went to Weybridge registry office in the middle of an unseasonable blizzard (which I choose not to take as some kind of supernatural sign) and got legally hitched. Not that things are ever that straight forward for us. And the funny thing is, that's not actually a bad thing at all.

You see, with our health, Deb and I are both used to the concept of pacing. We have to take weeks to accomplish something someone might do in an afternoon. We break up the task with rests, sometimes having to change to a different task if, for example, it is something which, done too often, leads to a dramatic increase in pain. Pacing. It's one of the greatest leasons a chronically poorly person can learn. Because without it, it's all too easy to become frustrated.

I have noticed, however, that when applied to something like a wedding, which is a very public event and one which involves other people directly, if they don't get the concept of pacing, they can misread the event entirely.

Our registry office do became significantly larger than we'd anticipated. Honestly I think we'd both felt that we might have two parents there, mainly as wheelchair pushers. Four parents max (which is lucky as we only have the four). This number tripled. Not that that's a bad thing - it was very nice having everyone there. But an event which we thought of as just a legal doodah suddenly became quite a bit more daunting.

Deborah, Stephen, Granny, Alex and Sophie.
Sophie might have been a bit happy, but it's so hard to tell with her.

This does serve as a prime example of why pacing is so important - it took us quite a while to recover from such a big event. If we'd tried to do things traditionally, we'd not have made it through the day.

So come late July, we'll be finishing the job we started with our own, specially planned day with the absolute minimum of stress and with everything carefully planned. And of course, those plans will never go absolutely smoothly, but because of the way we're doing things, if there is a hickup, we will be able to raise our voices, shout 'All right you horrible lot, we're starting that bit over and stop your complaining' and everything will be fine. Having such a period of time in between means that we have been able to spend time organising one section without worrying too much about the next. And we should, barring Deb's toe trying to fall off, be as healthy as possible come the day.

My parents get this - my mother's chronically ill and my father has worked in special schools most of his life. Deb's parents find it a bit more difficult to fathom, but are doing surprisingly well. I think that they saw that the registry office do really wasn't that meaningful and I think, as time moves on and the concept of a fish and chip wedding lunch becomes a bit less alien, they can see why this means so much to us. It's also, I hope, clear to see that we're both truly excited about July.

But I am aware that, because our marriage will not be conventional (which, as much as I could try to blame it on disability, is perhaps equally to do with the kind of people we both are), there are people who might not quite get it. In the same way that same-sex marriage, or inter-faith marriage, or, heaven help us, marriage between people who feel differently about chorizzo sausage, might be considered not quite official and meaningful. Not quite real.

But what do they matter?

In other posts I've spoken about tech, both special and widely adopted, and how important it is to me. So I wanted to tie them together with the wedding.

Firstly, walking sticks.

You know that a walking stick is an intrinsic part of your sense of self when you're watching a good film, have sunk so deeply into it that you have become the hero, and, watching them wander out of their front door, think to yourself, "Idiot, you've forgotten your walking stick!"

My walking stick is a part of me. And so, I have to have the right one for the wedding. Yep, I have several! And as I try to create the perfect ensemble (more on which later), so I have to choose the perfect stick. Should I choose the eagle-headed stick? The dragon from Cyprus my father picked up for me? Or should I go with the knobkerrie my sister bought me when she went up Kilimanjaro? I'm still not 100% certain, but I think I am favouring the dragon.

I hope that being able to consider my stick as an intrinsic part of the outfit means that I am fully accepting of it as a part of who I am without that having any negative connotations. In the same way as I am accepting of my glasses.

Cassie inspected my partly-made shoes from
Green Shoes, and decided that they really should
have been black...

Then there is all the help we've had from conventional tech. We booked the registry office on the strength of its website combined with the help of google maps and streetview. EBay has been our constant companion and, as Deb is making her own dress with a rather unusual fabric, we'd not have been able to source it easily any other way (although we did have some help from friends who could access charity shops...). I have always wanted a made-to-measure suit, and indeed I have one ordered. No visiting a tailor - Deb measured me up and everything has been ordered online from Suitopia. In a display of blatant greed, I have also ordered made-to-measure boots from Green Shoes to match. I will write more about both of these on another day - but as a disabled man who would have a slightly hellish time clothes shopping otherwise, these internet-accessable busineses have been a real blessing.

On the day, we want a small do. We'd not cope with having all of our friends there, and indeed, many of our friends would simply not be able to travel and cope with the ceremony. So we will hopefully be setting up a live video stream for all those people who can't manage it. This is, I think, one of my favourite bits of our system. It, along with several other ways of doing things, has made a day that will be inclusive. It will allow everyone to be involved in the ways they can be. And that is, at the heart of all things, the essence of love. Love is inclusion. An understanding and acceptance of people and things as they are. Love does not seek to change.

Which reminds me of this - perhaps one of my favourite bible verses;

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
(1 Corinthians 13:4–8a)

So, in my mind, disability has helped to teach me all these things. I have become less rigid, more yielding, and yet I also have the strength to endure for the things I believe in. I have a confidence which does not stem from showing off. I do not look at the ways of others and feel envy, because I am certain of and happy with myself (whilst, I hope, being entirely accepting of other people's beliefs). And I know that, although disability can make me feel physically fragile, I can see my soul underneath and know its nature. And that it is eternal. 

All that because I'm poorly. And because I met the right poorly girl to share a world with. A world which you're all a part of.

BADD2013: Tech Expands the World (2/3)

When caught without a copy of the Iliad to read
to an unsuspecting infant, a smart phone
really comes into its own.

Having written about special technology which would benefit from being diffused out into general usage, I would now like to write about general technology which makes my life as a disabled chap so much brighter.

My phone is with me all the time. And yet, I very seldom use it to talk (or even to text) people. It is there
almost exclusively for internet related jobs. Now, I know that this is quite normal. Everyone with a smart phone has the same access to information at all times. So why do I feel that it especially benefits me as a person with a disability?

• Weight - my laptop isn't a heavy one, but when in pain, it can be hard to rest a laptop on my lap without it being a bit uncomfortable. With a phone, it can be propped or held with minimal physical effort. It's also possible to hold it at angles with which my laptop would not be happy. So on those occasions when my body needs to be bent in such a way as to resemble a slightly deformed pretzel in order to gain some relief, I can still shop on eBay. 

• Noise - my laptop's a noisy old thing. It will need upgrading soon and hopefully the new model might be a bit more quiet, but even so there are mornings when I've woken up early, dreams interupted by the pain, and rather than switch on my laptop and risk waking up Deb, I'm able to use my silent phone.  (It must be noted that I have played YouTube videos, confident that Deb won't be disturbed thanks to the headphones I'm wearing, only to then find out that my headphones might be on my head, but they're not actually plugged in to the phone...)

• Alarms - I remember my old gran's alarm clock. It had a red hand you moved to the time you wanted it to ring, and ring it would - with an actual physical bell. How on earth she coped with both the aural assault and the one alarm limit, I'll never know. My phone has a huge number of alarms set to ring throughout the day*. There are different tones to identify whether it's Deb or I who are being commanded to take tablets. Without these I know I'd be lost. And then there are the incidental alarms - something ending on eBay, a radio programme I might otherwise miss, or a phonecall I need to make. When lost in symptoms or drug-haze, a digital reminder can make life so much easier and safer.  

Whether on my phone or laptop, YouTube has become surprisingly important to me. I always rolled my eyes when people talked of YouTube being a threat to television channels, but it is so true in my case. I watch at least an equal amount of YouTube videos to actual television (excluding films). Every morning I check my YouTube subscriptions and recommendations. I will write more about these in the future, but each day I watch cheaply produced films made by amateurs who tell me more about interesting subjects than I am ever likely to see on television. This gives me a real sense of having learned about things; enriching my existence and making me a more capable human being, even if I'm not absolutely physically capable of all the things I've learnt.

Then there's social media. It's always hard when people attack social media as some kind of den of iniquity. It's usually people with no knowledge and experience who get the wrong end of a stick handed out by the dark drip-feed of a traditional media which lives in terror of its own death. Social Media is literally what you make it, because it is based on a society you have complete power over. Don't like someone on your feed? Like ancient Athens, you have access to the ostracons - you can exile them and rid your world of a dissenting voice. You can follow the lives of a thousand different people, and see what is important to them. The world expands, and so we care about each and every corner of it.

Of course, the downfall of this customised society comes if we forget that it is an individual construct and that a larger society outside of our direct and total control lives on and can threaten us (and, in turn, can be threatened and harmed by us). However, people can and have buried their collective bonces in the dust for millenia past - that's not going to stop over night. And Social Media allows us to monitor and talk about this Big Society in a way we couldn't before.

Also, when we do talk about things online, we're not limited to voice (or text). When Deb and I talk with family and friends, we're able to do so face to face. Skype really has made a huge difference to me. When I am away from my family, being able to call and both talk to and see them makes me feel much more at ease. Also, you get to see dogs who have relatively little to say on the phone.

Finally, there are the pictures. Call me infantile, but I like pictures. Picture books, photos, paintings, sketches, gifs... A picture paints a thousand words, and with flickr and facebook, instagram, 500px and yfrog, our world is full of beautiful, multicoloured thoughts and feelings we might never see otherwise - especially if we can't easily leave our rooms. I love it when someone photographs their lunch. I welcome every picture of a yarn-bombed tree. Each carefully quilled portrait and beautifully lit news-story. The internet, however I access it, broadens my horizon quite literally and I love watching the world through the eyes of the infinite. 

Other than the physical comfort afforded by my phone, there is an overarching theme to all these things - the lack of mobility that disability enforces, and the shrinking of ones' world thanks to social prejudice. But not only has tech allowed us access to socialisation, shopping, learning and the free and natural beauty of the world (and people's interpretations of it), it has also allowed us the opportunity to project ourselves into the public conscious. The possibility that someone can see your face rather than just talking to you on the phone** means that the exquisite variety of disabled faces become less radical, and so makes them more easy to appreciate and admire. Social media allows for energy-efficient communication with a large number of people, and also helps to empower (even though I worry about the nature of some disability cabals on the net). And If I can watch a video on woodworking and comment on it as a disabled man who has an interest and appreciation of such things, then the carpenter who made it can know that someone who can't just pick up a hammer cares as much as he about such a large part of his life. We are joined, no matter how briefly, and the social restrictions and prejudices fall away. Tech has the great potential to project our souls out into the world where it is not easy for us to be. And I believe that this will help to change the world in ways that will make it easier for us to inhabit it.

So thank you, world. Thank you for bypassing some of the restrictions on my life through widely adopted tech. It makes me happy and hopeful.

*I even had an alarm go off on the way to the registry office - In 15 minutes you need to get married, my phone told me.
** The possibility of skype calls with doctors is something I'm very much hoping for.

BADD2013 - A Sticky Situation (1/3)

There was a time when speech recognition software was about as specialist as tech got. I remember in the dark old days of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 4 wowing people with the barely understandable translations offered me after an hour training my PC to the individual cadence of my speech by bellowing out, steadily, in a Newsreader voice, a section from Alice in Wonderland. Things move on, and now, not only has the process simplified remarkably and become a genuine alternative to typing (almost), the integration of this tech into smart phones has removed the associations it once had with disability.

I recently read a wonderful article about disability in anthropology/archaeology on the same day that I read through one of Deb's blog post comments in which she explained how she interprets the Social Model of Disability. There is a simplicity about the concept I greatly admire - in fact, more than that, it makes me feel safe. All the best theories do, as they pin down the messes of reality into a manageable lump. So, in the words of Aimee Mann, this is how it goes;

Society is what disables us. And that disability can be caused by many different things - physical impairment, emotional distress and even prejudice itself. The impairments are unique and different, but we are united as a group by our universal experience of social disablism. 

My father is a great man. He has always kept me safe, whilst encouraging me to be as independent as possible. He has never felt embarrassed about my inability to do normal things, and, indeed, has never acted in a way that has encouraged me to feel embarrassed about my health and the accommodations needed to live with it.

In the last couple of years, my father's health has taken a turn for the worst. I always knew this would be a difficult time. Several times my father has said "It's a good thing you're poorly - I'd never cope as well as you do". And, indeed, he doesn't. But still, I wasn't expecting to hear from him what I did just a few months back.

"Well, I went down to the Post Office today with my walking stick looking like a really doddery old man."

I have been using a walking stick for many, many years. There was a time when I was embarrassed to use it; propping it out of sight if there was someone about who I didn't totally trust. But as I had fewer falls, felt more stable in general and could get in and out of chairs without copious groaning, I was able to get over it. And getting over it was, as with pretty much every problem I've ever had, something my dad's laid back attitude helped with.

A Pillbox sensitively labelled "Baldwin's Nervous Pills"

And yet he really struggles with his stick. And that's awful. Because he doesn't mind using this pillbox I bought him a while back. And perhaps most importantly because he's the one who actually bought Dragon NaturallySpeaking all those years ago. He sat there just as I did reading aloud out-of-copywrite text for hours on end to try to get the computer to recognise what he was saying. He didn't feel bad about it then - it was just another gadget to get excited over.

And this is what is so interesting - tech of whatever kind falls into a spacific space.

•  Acceptable tech for general use. 
• Specialist tech that remains funky. 
• And specialist tech for the 'Special'. 

And it's not as if a walking stick has always been for the 'Special'. Take Beau Brummell. There's a rather wonderful statue of him in Jermyn Street, London - a road almost exclusively populated by posh men's clothing shops (what do you mean you didn't think I'd know about shops like that?). He stands there looking rather elegant and extremely confident. And although I'm not sure that a stick that delicate would be resilient enough for a chap of my weight, he brandishes it without the slightest hint of embarrassment.

"To be truly elegant one should not be noticed." 

Brummel said that. Now, I'm not sure I fully agree with him, but presuming that he wanted to be elegant, he wasn't going to be doing something which he felt would make him look "Special" in that horrible inverted commas kind of way. It was a gadget which was as stylish as it was functional. And this is why we should rethink the walking stick. I've seen some pimped walking sticks complete with torches, grabbers and panic alarms. But that doesn't equate to style. Style needs something a bit less worthy...

So my ideas for a new line of respectable walking sticks appropriate of all walks (and staggers) of life;

• Sword Stick - there is something undoubtedly cool about a sword stick. I know they are incredibly illegal in most countries now. But in the UK at least, there has been a dramatic increase in incidents of disability hate crime on the streets. So would arming the disabled populace really be such a bad idea?

• Medicinal Tipple Stick - I do not want in any way to encourage irresponsible use of alcohol (which says a lot about me when I have no problem at all with suggesting that disabled people should hack their tormentors to pieces), but the tipple stick was cool for many of the same reasons why I always wanted a sword stick. So, rather than secreting a stash of booze under the handle of your walking stick, why not replace that with a stash of medicine? But only the good stuff - the stuff a non-disabled person might be willing to knock over a Boots for. 

• GPS Walking Stick - Fujitsu actually got to this one before me, and didn't they do a nice job?  The GPS stick reminds me of these rather lovely GPS brogues but makes much more sense given that the shoes rely, not only on having two feet, but also an unrestricted view of them (and, having discovered a particularly nice red-wine soaked goats cheese at Tesco, it's possible that in a few years time I might not be able to see my feet any more). 

Obviously of the three, the GPS stick is the most sensible.  It is also, however, very exciting - we can incorporate tech into so many things, and with good design we can make them desirable and stylish. Imagine a swagger-stick with built in bluetooth connecting to your phone. A series of LEDs along the shaft of the stick scrolling messages from your twitter stream, sharing with the world the collective wit of your social circle.

Screenshot from the film Wall-e showing a levitating
power-chair user drinking from a large cup whilst our
hero, the yellow robot Wall-e, watches.

The dystopian horror of universal mobility in the otherwise excellent film Wall-e is its one flaw - the truth is that as soon as a technology loses its stigma, we open society up to true equality. And that equality does not mean that we all become lazy - indeed, that attitude just demonstrates an intrinsic belief that people who cannot walk are lazy wasters who aren't really trying hard enough. And it's all madness anyway - people expend energy driving themselves when they might be chauffeured via public transport. They walk and run and cycle for FUN. And they even visit gyms. And they do all of those things whether they're disabled or not.

Lazy people will always be lazy. But most people aren't, and having pieces of technology available which can help them when they need it and which, most importantly, don't make them feel doddery when using it, will only help to keep them active and productive longer.

BADD 2013

Tomorrow is Blogging Against Disablism 2013. This year I shall be writing not one, not two, but three shiny new posts in honour of Blogging Against Disablism Day 2013. This event allows people from all over the world to unite, writing on the theme of disability in our less than perfect society. The perspectives are as broad as you can possibly get, and I hope that my thoughts will help towards creating an interesting snapshot of the lives of disabled people in 2013.

So come back tomorrow for my three posts in honour of #BADD2013!

Mary Beard and the Sheela na gig

Doing my degree was a huge act of faith.  I knew that I would gain lots from the process, but so often a degree is seen as a means to an end - the end being employment.  I remember talking to one of the more coherent taxi drivers who ferried me back and forth from the hospital school I attended.  When I mentioned the possibility of doing a classics degree eventually, he was a bit astounded - who'd ever pay you to classicise?

And although there's not a lot of money in the field, there are positions of employment - jobs which I'm unlikely to ever be able to contemplate.  I'd love to teach in some way, but for the time being at the very least, this is out of the question.  How, then, do I not feel like I wasted the time, effort and money getting my classics degree?

Mary Beard is a classicist who has done very well for herself of late.  I don't think a month has gone by recently when she's not been on the BBC news site (although not always in full toga).  Her blog, A Don's Life, is very successful.  And she's presented some wonderful documentaries.  Of course, if you go on Question Time and deign to offer an opinion...

Have you ever come across a Sheela na gig?  These sculptures (often found on church buildings, particularly in Ireland) depict women spreading their vulvas for...well...the reason's a bit of a mystery.  Some people think that it represents the dangers of female lust.  Others that they're a simple fertility symbol.  I'm inclined more towards the theory that they are an image to ward off evil spirits.  So, why do I mention them?

Well, the furor over Mary Beard's appearance on Question Time resulted in a flood of vile misogynistic abuse on the net. Several times when I've written blog posts, Deb's warned me that there's the potential some twit might start trolling.  But the sad truth is that she's much more likely to be targeted   Women just attract more of this kind of cowardly bullying.

So Mary Beard was targeted - and how did she react?  Well, in my mind at least (which is a very odd mind and in no way representative) she took a leaf out of the Sheela na gig playbook.  Rather than retreating from the comments and insults about her genitalia, she replied, facing evil spirits with the full force of her feminine power (I know...I could hardly bring myself to write 'feminine power'...but bare with me, it is quite late and I lost some sleep last night).

Deb wrote a very important blog post about misogynistic bullying on the net, and she identified two damaging pieces of advice given to women dealing with this kind rubbish.  It's really worth reading the post, but, to very briefly summarise, the advice was to 'be nice' and to 'grow a thicker skin'.  A woman who has been encouraged to act in this way will never be able to deal with abuse head on.  She must ignore it and try to be as nice as possible in the hope of avoiding further attacks.

But Professor Beard did the most powerful thing she could - she named the abuse as clearly as possible.  It takes a lot of courage to actually repeat the nasty things said to you.  I remember my grandmother losing patience with another elderly lady of her acquaintance because she didn't feel capable of repeating in court the threats shouted at her by some yob because it was 'rude'.  Well, if classics as a subject taught me anything, it's that rudeness is sometimes entirely appropriate.  Also, it helps that Mary Beard, having read Catullus and the like, will be familiar with similar levels of rudeness, albeit tempered by poetic genius.  The Sheela na gig exposes her femininity (for whatever reason) creating an image of total honesty and power.  Mary Beard goes on Woman's Hour and uses the word 'vagina'.  In fact, she uses it in relation to her own body.  In doing so, she regains complete ownership of herself*.  And the evil spirits depart.

She has done this for the benefit of those weaker than she.  Those who are harmed more deeply by these silly people.  And what's more, she's calmly addressed the aggressors and, it would seem, has been successful in reforming them (for some time at least - I'm not ever so optimistic about such people) thereby making the world a better place for everyone.

So why do I feel like I didn't waste my time, effort and money getting a degree in classics?  Because my studies have bought my a little closer to heroic figures like Mary Beard.


*Not that I think Mary Beard ever lost ownership of herself - but I think that the abusers felt that they suddenly had some power and rights over her being.  I believe it is this confidence of ownership which allows bullies to do such awful things.  'It's my toy to destroy as I see fit...'

Office Party (A piece of Flash Fiction for Interzone Advent Calendar)

This has been written for TTA Press's yearly Advent Calendar of Flash Fiction (less than 1500 words...or bang on in my case).  As an avid Interzone subscriber, I've fancied giving this a go for a while.  I hope you enjoy it.

---

Office Party

Stephen Whitehead

Distant tinny music filtered along the metal corridors of the Epsilon Class Explorer Vessel, each note collecting a thin coating of rust as it went.  The vast pressure of vacuum caused dissonant groans as the panels of the ship’s skin shifted to bare the load.

Vast pressure of vacuum, she thought, gloomily.  Vast, silent pressure.  Briefly she toyed with the idea of spacing the entire worthless lot of them as they gyrated and flirted their way towards a paralytic coma.

“Christmas...” she sighed.

She’d grown up an Ep-Ex rat, living her entire life in the confined space of a ship designed exclusively to travel as far and as cheap as possible.  Not for her verdant vistas.  Even when they found an interesting spot in the galaxy, she stayed firmly in the cabin which was home, work and comfort.  She flew.  The crew explored.

The crew.  Every three years a new bunch of candidates.  Slung deep through the void on a gravity well and then cruising the solar currents in search of something new, interesting and, preferably, extraordinarily valuable.  Bunch of warp-drive wannabes.  Not one had any idea what their life would become.  They dreamt of glory and adventure but soon realised they’d have to drink away the next three years of their life or go mad in the dark expanse she so loved.

“The child is a King, the Carollers sing,

The old has passed, there's a new beginning...”

Not that drinking your life away was always a bad idea, she thought to herself, head dropping in defeat.

The damp tinsel tacked with hot glue and hope to the bulkheads wafted in the scant airflow afforded by the recirculation unit.  The goldish fronds clumping like some wet animal.

It was at that point her entirely relative calm was broken.

Judd was a typical adventuring space pirate quarterback.  Why a six foot four pile of muscle and teeth would take a job in the cramped confines of a space craft, she couldn't....well, actually, she could guess.  On his bare bicep was a passable representation of the ship complete with the date of departure and, rather optimistically she felt, return.  This was to be his great story.  No doubt he had already picked out the rocking chair from which he would recite great tales of daring do to the hundred or so grandchildren he could already name.  Juddson.  Judd Jnr Jnr.  Juddette.

“Join us!”  He gestured with a foamy bottle of many-times-recycled beer.

“I’d rather not.”  She turned away to the rows of instruments – lights with every right and reason to flash multicoloured.  This, however, did not deter him.

“Captain, I really feel like we've not hit it off like I wish we had...”

She aimed an eyebrow at him, usually enough to send any one of them scurrying.  But not Judd, probably thanks to numbing cheer.  He merely slumped into the worn foam sling-shaped navigator’s perch, his bulky knee thudding against her dainty zero-g adapted joint.

“ I've got a story for you!” he enthused, his face bursting into a sly grin.

“Ooooohhhh...” his face fell and she marginally corrected the nosedive of her response, “...good.”  Her tone didn't rise with any hint of enthusiasm, but a lack of outright threat seemed enough to convince Judd that his story was perhaps the greatest idea he’d ever had.  To be fair, she thought, this could well be the case.

“There was this other Epsilon class a few years back a mate of mine was on, came across a habited world covered in the greenest grass you've ever seen.  Fruit growing everywhere.  Only two species of sentient life on the whole planet – some sea mammals look like bright orange whales filtering algae in the seas – and these furry little primates who harvest fruit on the land.  No biggie, right?  No real trade potential – the algae wasn't bad, but eat a bowl and you end up as orange as the whales.”

Despite herself, the captain snorted – the irony of a drink-flushed boy criticising those of unusual hue was unintentionally hilarious.

“No language, no buildings, no clothes even.  They spent all year wandering around naked eating fruit and getting fat.  They sound simple, right?  But they had this weird orb thing, some kind of computer.”  He flicked idly at a kumquat-sized glittery bauble precariously attached to the main engine core release.  “ Didn't seem to actually do anything for them, but every few days the primates came over and pressed their hand against it,” he let the shiny ball roll against his hand, “and there’s this flash of light and...well...nothing.  Tech guys figured it to be some kind of scanner.”

She was impressed, thinking that the orb would turn out to be a weapon and the story inevitably descend into epic, culminating in an intergalactic battle for Truth, Honour and probably some kind of apple based pudding.

“So, anyway, as they’re observing, winter comes by,” he gestured around at the tinsel, as if it spoke of something as organic as a season,  “and by come by, I mean WHAM, two days later the grass is all sparkly white and even the seas have iced over.  The whales dived deep and entered some kind of hibernation.  But top side is where it gets interesting.”

He leaned closer, voice dropping.  She could smell the stale booze on his breath and the biological results of scant water reserves.  His eyes, though, still sparkled and she found herself unwilling to halt the story.

“When warm, the little guys were all spread out across the land.  But as soon as it got chilly, they scurried back to the orb, clustering around it like it was some great big heater.  And the techs said that yes, it was giving off a faint heat.  Like, maybe, a couple cups of coffee-worth!  But still, they snuggled up close to it, maybe ten thousand of ‘em.  We threw up an IR filter, and sure enough, right at the centre they were warm as an ostrich in clover,”

She blinked, but he didn't pause.  Or explain.

“...and they kept moving, milling around like a mass of electrons circling the nucleus of an atom.  But those little electrons, they started to fade.”

He flicked the sparkly decoration, sending it spiralling around madly.  Light caught and flickered across the room.  Irritated, she grabbed at it, carefully lifted it from the bank of switches, placed it under the heel of her boot, and with one deliberate squeeze, shattered the delicate ball.

He gulped.

“Get on with it, okay?”

“Okay,” he mumbled, suddenly much less sure of himself.  “Er, the ones on the edge started to die.  Just not warm enough, right?  But their friends didn't stop to mourn or bury or burn or whatever.  They just kept moving with three or four dying every hour.    Soon there was a thick wall of furry frozen bodies surrounding this circle of little guys buzzing about.  And the more died, the less the wind got in.  But the less heat they were all producing.  So it kept pretty stable.  And this carried on for well over a hundred cycles, them getting thinner and thinner and the bodies piling up.”

She almost asked why no one did anything to stop this, but everyone knew that you couldn't interfere.  You could convince them to sign away half the wealth of their entire planet in exchange for a plastic singing Santa (and given the distant rendition of ‘Rocking Around the Christmas Tree’, she could almost support that policy), but stop a race from wiping themselves out and suddenly you weren't respecting their cultural autonomy.

“And all the time they kept touching this orb thing.  It was only by the time the numbers were way down, less than a hundred, we realised that the flash of light changed with the different beings.  What’s more, the shorter the flash, the closer to the edge they then went.  The longer the flash, the closer to the centre they stayed.  Until finally only two were left.  And on that day, the winter lifted.  The grass was green in a few hours.  But,” suddenly the greasy smile returned, “there was one thing the pair were left to do...”

She looked at him, could barely bring herself to say it.  “Repopulate the planet?”

His face split open, emanating an horrific glee like radiation.

“Well I thought we might just start with dinner, but OKAY!”

As he leaned towards her, she thrust an arm forward, her nimble fingers catching his flushed nose like a prize salmon.

“All that was some kind of,” she paused, letting sufficient bile rise to colour her words bright green, “COME ON?”

He was struck dumb, the stinging pain of his predicament causing tears to leap to his suddenly fearful eyes.

She sighed, letting go of him abruptly so that he tumbled from his seat and landed in a crumpled mess on the chequer plate deck.

“Christmas.” she muttered under her breath as she left the room.

Shhhh!

As with most things, I'm rather behind the times.  It's been many months since most of the arguments to combat the closure of libraries in the UK have been made.  People have been impassioned.  Placards have been waved.  And so it's now, after all of that, that I've decided to blog about it.

Having said that I'm behind the times, like most classicists, I can be surprisingly modern.  I bought a digital camera when they were still very rare (one of those Sony machines which stored the data on 3.5" floppy disk!  When they still measured things in imperial...), I have not one, but two Raspberry Pis and, if I had my wish, a flat screen television would rise up from the foot of my bed (I said I was modern, not that I have taste).

Why then would the disappearance of libraries matter to me?  The great meta-data cloud of the internet can provide us with, in some cases, a lot more information than can be gleaned in a wood pulp collection, and, what's more, in a fraction of the time.  Books sold on the internet are relatively cheap and easily found.  As much as I miss the excitement and sensual pleasure of browsing in a tiny book shop, I don't mourn the passing of these institutions in the same way.

But that's because they weren't institutions, they were businesses.  One of the many wonderful things about a library is that profit really should not enter into its ethos.  I think that this is one of the reasons that they have fallen foul of the twenty-first century.  'Profit as worth' is a concept which has trampled on places like these.

What then can we get from a non-profit space?  Everything else!  And do you know how I know this?  Because of my dreams...

I have nightmares every night.  It's to do with my body reacting to pain.  Some nights they're not too bad, others they're awful.  But they are usually very interesting and vivid.  I have many repeated themes that would, no doubt, fascinate any budding psychotherapist.  But let us concentrate on the dream image of the library.

In my sleepy brain, a library can house almost anything - violent struggles (blood on the crinkled spines), intrigues (whispered conversations behind the shelves), quests (the rows and rows of books leading on for miles and miles) and...well...best leave it there in case I give too much away and sentence myself to a prolonged period of incarceration and therapy.

There is a very good reason why my brain can site so many different genres of action in one space.  A library can be a huge number of things.  It is an open, public space.  It does not discriminate on lines of gender, age, ability, literacy or even taste (you should have seen the number of x-files "novels" I borrowed as a kid).  People can gather for events (book readings, IT courses etc) and there are facilities entirely apart from the bound pages (in our library there were computers, a photocopier and spaces at which one could work).

When I was talking to Deb about this, she very sensibly pointed out that spaces of congregation were disappearing - fewer people go to church and the associated meeting groups.  Libraries worked in a similar way.  We as a species are bettered by being around a wide group of individuals.  We learn to tolerate and understand the true meaning of 'diversity' outside of political spiel.  It also gives a place which you don't necessarily need to drive to.  There's a reason why there were always a good number of pensioners wafting around the shelves.  It's a cheap, warm and safe venue.

And although I'm an advocate of actually owning books (if you buy enough of them, they act like a second layer of insulation on the walls of your dwelling), there are many advantages to being able to borrow them for free.  I developed much of my taste for fantasy and science-fiction literature through the dedicated shelf of my local library.  And I did this at a time when I desperately needed an otherworld to disappear into.  Escapism, though, was just one of the gifts given to me.

I remember as a child my entire primary school class going to the library to become members.  As cultish as that sounds, it was a rite of passage of which I heartily approve.  We all got our library card which we had to keep safe (it was made of porous cardboard too, not some kind of indestructible plastic.  If we wanted to keep borrowing books, we had to look after that thing!).  With the card we were able to take out our first book - and we did, the entire class.  I wish I could say that I remember which book I got out.  I only know that it was a reference book and so was probably about dinosaurs.

When studying for my A-levels via distance learning, I went to the library to study.  There was absolutely no practical reason to do this - I had all the information I needed in my course folder and I was comfortable working in my bedroom/study.  But I knew that studying in a library was something that people did.  So I travelled to the library on my mobility scooter, set myself up at a desk, and did my best to work for however long I could stand it (probably an hour).  I think in the handful of times I did this I read about twenty A4 pages and wrote less than five hundred words.  It was not energy efficient.  But I have that experience - sat at the shiny desk, trying my best to concentrate in this environment that was entirely shared.  It is a memory which makes me smile.

And then there's the issue of choice.  You can walk into a library and chose any book you want.  True, you have to make it past the judging eyes of the librarian ("Ground Zero by Kevin J. Anderson AGAIN?") but if you can cope with that, then you have the option to try everything with absolutely no monetary risk.  And so this place which you don't have to travel far to visit gives you access to a vast geography of knowledge and taste.  It really can open up eyes to new ideas.  And that's something we really need - new ideas and greater scope.  And we need that to be based in a space which is free from the tyranny of profit based worth.

So save the libraries!  If there are any left by now...

The Idiocy of Recent Statements About Rape

Just to warn you, this post discusses rape and ignorant attitudes regarding the subject.

Last week Deb wrote a rather amazing post about some of the things we can do to prevent rape.  It was very well received.  Indeed, even her hero, Captain Awkward, retweeted and mentioned it.  And so she should, as it was very important.  It addressed some of the errors people make in campaigns to reduce incidents of rape whilst also pointing out the behaviours we can do our best to stamp out.  You Really Must Read It.

After having written it, however, the proverbial has most definitely hit the air circulation device.  There have been several things in the news which fly in the face of Deb's advice.  Obviously the people involved did not listen to me and read the post.  So, I feel that I should go through and list some of the mistakes people have been making, most of which are covered by point no. 7 on Deb's list;

Use The Word Rape to Describe Rape.

Julian Assange has been accused of a crime.  It is entirely beyond me to know whether he has or hasn't committed this crime.  That is what the legal system is for.  However, rather than relying on the process of that system, there seems to have been another tactic used.

Denial that the act of which he's accused is rape.

Although, as I say, I don't know if he's guilty or not, I find this difficult.  If I had been accused of rape, my first act would be to address my guilt rather than to quibble over what is or is not rape.

But quibble people have.  Most recently George 'Meow' Galloway has waded in.  He has suggested that raping a woman while she is asleep (and so unable to consent - hence rape) is 'bad manners'.  Even now, having been condemned and given the chance to retract his statement, he has not.

"What occurred is not rape as most people understand it. And it's important to note that the two women involved did not initially claim it."

As most people understand it.  Well now, this is part of the problem.  Mr Galloway is not human as I understand it - if he were he would be unable to say such a thing.  However, I understand that my belief of what constitutes humanity is in contradiction to what biology and, sadly, the law states.  If I wanted to, I could brutally murder a spider (if I were brave enough to get close to one in the first place, that is) with no legal comeback.  However, if I were to do the same thing to Mr Galloway, I would be rightly charged and convicted for the act.

If I went about expressing my view of Mr Galloway's lack of humanity enough, I might even be able to convince people to join me.  Soon, with enough voices chanting, he might become sub-human in the eyes of society.  It's happened before.

That is the power of belief.  And so we have to chant;

Rape is rape.

It might also be worth addressing the rest of the above quote - the two women did not report it initially.  Oh well then, that makes it so clear.  Because every victim of rape marches straight up to the nearest police station and reports the crime.  Because that's an easy thing to do when there are silly people out there muddying the waters by suggesting that what most people understand as rape is something other than what they have experienced.  As Deb says, 'So often accounts of rape begin, “I wasn't raped, but this thing happened to me once where I was forced to have sex against my will...”'

People are raped and don't report it.  Proper statistics seem a bit impossible to me, but take this Independent article from March of this year;

'One in 10 women has been raped, and more than a third subjected to sexual assault, according to a major survey, which also highlights just how frightened women are of not being believed. More than 80 per cent of the 1,600 respondents said they did not report their assault to the police, while 29 per cent said they told nobody – not even a friend or family member – of their ordeal.'

So the women weren't raped because they didn't report it, George?  Please.

The problem with the Assange situation is that he is a hero to many people on the left.  But in their desire to protect their hero, they are making the lives of those who have been raped so much harder.  They are also painting a very damaging image of sexual life.

Not that I blame this entirely on Assange and the left.  You just have to read some of the dodgy articles in both men's and women's magazines to see a very dangerous image of a sex-life which is both aggressive and plain weird (read point no. 5 in Deb's post).  And then there are things like the 'romantic' scenes in stories like Twilight.  Stalking behaviour is somehow elevated into something sexy.

Galloway's initial interview paints a picture of a man who, when acting properly, wakes up the love of his life and says,

"'scuse me, do you mind if I put it back in again, please?'

*cringe*

I think this is where plain sense should overcome anything else.  If this is your image of right and proper...then something serious is wrong.

In America, the problems with rape have been somewhat different, and yet entirely the same.  No. 7 has been breached but so has all scientific (rather than just legal) reality.  I would be amazed if you'd not already heard the specifics, but in brief;

Todd Akin has suggested that women suffering 'legitimate rape' are able to magically protect themselves from getting pregnant.  Challenged on this he has claimed to have used either 'a wrong word' or 'wrong words' depending on which interview you read.  He does not, however, specify which of those words were wrong.

Obviously the whole thing is wrong.  It is scientifically, factually, morally and in all ways WRONG.  As I understand it (and I am no expert in American politics) his motives for saying and, presumably, believing such a thing is that if this were the case then it would help to support his anti-abortion stance.  If this were the case he can then say that only women wanting to get pregnant will get pregnant.  So there's no need for abortion.

As leaps of logic go, it makes Sonic the Hedgehog's jumping abilities look like, well, mine.  But as well as the logic and science flaws, we have a concept of different kinds of rape.  Legitimate and illegitimate.  The crime is once again something that can be question.  Was it really rape?  Well, you did fall pregnant, so you must have wanted it.

Well, you didn't report it straight away, so it can't be rape.

Well, you were in bed with him, so you were asking for it.

Well, you did put on the short skirt...

Well, you did go out walking in that neighbourhood...

Well, did you do everything you possibly could have done to stop him...?

It is heartbreaking seeing the look in someones eyes when they come to terms with the fact that they were raped.  It is heartbreaking when someone questions what rape is, questioning what a victim has experienced.  It is heartbreaking seeing what is, effectively, another violation and the change in their body language as the damage hits home.

But because of the fear that we might have to witness someone we love dealing with the aftermath of rape, because we might know someone who could have committed rape, and because, ultimately, we might have acted in such a way that we could be a rapist, we question the definition of rape and the validity of the experience of victims.  That is nothing less than absolute cowardice, if not significantly more.

And by we, I mean men.  Every one of the idiots involved in these things have been men.  They talk with such authority and absolute arrogant certainty and don't stop for a second just to question what it is that they're saying.  And the scary thing is, you get the feeling they wouldn't stop to question what they're doing either.

We need to question ourselves.  Men need to look at the things we do and think and say.  We need to listen to the experiences of women and understand.  And when we find other men saying stupid things, we have to speak out, lest those we love and care for are hurt.

Pi squared

You know, I don't know how I managed to miss the PlyPi from my list of achievements.  Although I listed artistic achievements, and the Raspberry Pi case was included vaguely along with that, I was trying to deal, at the time, with getting a couple of photos ready for an exhibition.  But I think it's fair to say that, other than one or two popular photos on Flickr, the PlyPi is my biggest achievement in terms of public reaction.

And today there's more!  Jon Yoemans has written a piece for ZDNet which features, along with seven other brilliant Pi enclosures, the PlyPi.  And I couldn't be more proud.

So here's a link - read and enjoy.

And if you've not seen it already, here's the Venture Beat article which has been drawing people to my blog for a good few weeks now.

Rest assured, I have more ideas for Pi cases and, fingers crossed, I will soon have the means, time and energy (all of which are in short supply) to put some together.

Thank you to everyone who have said such kind and supportive things about my work.  Being a poorly type means that so many of my achievements are small and unrecognised.  This is all rather...strange.  But nice.

EDIT 2013 - PLANS NOW AVAILABLE

5/5 Going for Gold

Being traditionally British, success is a difficult concept for me.  I've been bought up to believe that taking part is the most important thing and that actually lifting the gold cup is actually a bit excessive, a bit immodest, a bit OTT.  We are programmed to say "Well, it's nothing really" and downplay success.  It's no coincidence that Ali's "I am the greatest!" came from supple American lips, not stiff British ones.

So please accept how tricky this blog post is to write.

I have been tremendously successful recently.  Even when I've not been.

Let's start with the easy stuff.  Already this last week I have written about;

• My birthday and how well it went - no family rows, no trauma, no thrown birthday cake (only one dropped one, and that didn't do it much harm) and no unwanted socks.  Instead I got everything I wanted and more.  We all enjoyed the day in an easy and comfortable way.  And I did not suffer any anxiety about entering my third decade.

• Although I didn't enjoy the film ever so much, I was able to see the theatre production of War Horse.  Although this might not seem like a tremendous achievement, it did mean travelling into London and surviving the theatre production and trip back home.  It was a big day and I suffered for it.  But the memories, as you could probably tell, live on in a very positive way.

• I am engaged.  Enough said.

• I photographed an outdoor theatre production in the dark with a 300mm zoom lens.  Not many people do that kind of thing and I believe that I do it very well indeed.  I can get into the rhythm of Shakespeare and use that to help guide when I press the shutter.  I hope that my photos make some of the cast smile, especially given how much they make me smile.

• I am most of the way through a book which I am not enjoying, but which I can not enjoy in an educated and enlightened way because of the work I've put into my education along with a natural skill with literature and narrative.

And on a similar vein;

• I have completed a degree in Classics and made it into London (again!  And I don't even like the capital!) to graduate.  Because of this I feel I have a set of knowledge I can use to rubbish incredibly successful novels.  And also to enlighten and inform anyone who wishes it.

• I have two photos ready to go into an exhibition in a couple of weeks time.

• I am learning Latin and ukulele and loving both.

• I am producing art in various forms.

• I am helping people in many ways, including practical things (I helped with a Holiday Club for children by sorting out IT issues) and more airy fairy emotional stuff.

Of course, life cannot be all success.  But when things go wrong, increasingly I feel that this just becomes another possibility for success.

I recently found out that my blood pressure and cholesterol were both raised.  Given that, due to my health, I cannot exercise, this means that my chance of heart attack or stroke are quite significantly raised.  Obviously this is a pretty bad thing, but since then I've been working hard on both diet and stress.  I have cut my salt intake (which was hard, because I didn't ever overload on salt) and reduced the amount of saturated fats I'm eating.  I've not had a single rasher of bacon in over three weeks now.

And the interesting thing is that success in this is not measured by the reduction in BP or cholesterol (my BP has reduced somewhat...although whether enough or not, I'll let my GP decide) but in how well I've made the change in diet.  I'm not doing anything with my diet that is hurtful or upsetting.  I'm still really enjoying the food we eat.  That's very important to me - food is a huge element of my sensual enjoyment of life.

Likewise, I've been trying my best to relax.  This one is harder and perhaps less of a success.  But I've found new images to use in an attempt to meditate and reduce BP, heart rate and such.

And even when health gets in the way of something like my planned blog a day for a week, it actually allowed me to include something more.  And my blogging has just extended into the weekend which is no problem at all.  And this morning when I've been awake early with pain, I've been able to concentrate on writing this.

So I really do feel that I am succeeding in life.  I don't believe that I am the greatest, but I'm beginning to feel that I'm getting close to being the best I could possibly be, and what's more, I'm accepting of the things that limit how much I can achieve.

Of course, I'm not always this enlightened.  I still get frustrated and angry.  I still sometimes forget my successes and dwell on the things that I wish I were doing.  But on the whole I feel...comfortable.

And the good thing about seeing all this success is how excited that makes me feel about the future.  Because if I'm succeeding now, then there's no reason why that shouldn't continue into the future.

The future's bright - the future's gold.

4/5 - Moan of Achilles

Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller - Review

I'm part of a book group on facebook, although honestly I'm rather behind; in part because I've been doing other things (not to mention reading other things) and in part because...well...we'll get to that in a minute.

The group decided to read Song of Achilles mainly, I think, because of its recent win of the Orange Prize for Fiction.  I was very pleased with the choice because of the subject matter - an interpretation of the relationship of Achilles and Patroclus: heroes of the Trojan War.  And when the book arrived, I was even more excited - in the extensive list of recommendations and panegyrics were ones from both Donna Tartt and Bettany Hughes *swoon*.

Now I must make it clear that I'm yet to finish the book.  We're about a hundred pages from the end.  But those hundred pages are beginning to look like the last twenty meters of a particularly long and hot walk over burning coals.

We are not enjoying the book.  Well, that's not entirely true - we've enjoyed laughing at a few bits.  But thus far there are some major problems.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the editing doesn't seem right.  There is a lot of repetition.  At first I thought this might be a stylistic thing - attempting to mirror the repetition you get in traditional oral storytelling (of which the Iliad is a major example).  However, in the first couple of chapters there were three separate references to Patroclus' thumbs.  I half wondered if I'd forgotten something important about this particular body part, but it just seems to be some little fetishistic detail that got left in.  Again, it makes sense that Achilles' feet are referred to on multiple occasions; he is, after all, swift footed Achilles.  But does there have to be so many?  And why do we have to read at least twice each chapter what he smells like?

And the smells, in general, are a bit funny.  It's like someone told the author that the key to writing is to describe what you see, hear and smell and if you do that you can't go wrong.  But, well, firstly that's not true.  And secondly, there's something odd about the smells.  It's like they live in a Greece that's at least two thirds Boots perfume counter.  Nothing ever smells bad, but it does often smell exactly the same over and over.

From my perspective, however, the most upsetting thing is the damage done to the story.  From the reviews I've read, people have been very impressed and moved by the story.  But the story is not hers.  And she really has hurt it in key ways.

Firstly, and most scarily, Patroclus is made as un-manly as possible.  Soldiering?  Not for our Patroclus - he can't fight.  Apart from in the last few pages where he's suddenly survived years and years of hand to hand combat without a scratch.  Being part of a homosexual couple, it would seem that Patroclus isn't allowed to be 'masculine'.  Achilles, meanwhile, becomes a serene photo of a character.  He's a poster on a teenager's bedroom wall, with much the same level of animation and spirit.  Diomedes is unrecognisable.  Odysseus is perhaps the most correct in translation, but the way that his story-telling dialogue is written is completely obtuse to anyone without knowledge of the myths and just not correct.

Not that any of the dialogue is correct.  Honestly, it is entirely flat.  And reading it out loud to each other (as we have been) really proves that point.

The result is a story that, thus far, has read like poor slash fan-fic.  The Iliad has been ravished and the characters rewritten to suit the fantasies of the author.  She inhabits Patroclus, allowing her to fondle Achilles who remains as 2D as the paper he's printed on.  And the worst part of the slash fan-fic style is that it ruins the *proper* relationship.  Ancient sexuality is not modern sexuality.  The early scenes in the palace are absolutely devoid of other homosexual relationships even though it's a veritable den of heterosexual iniquity.  It's as if Achilles and Patroclus are, not only 'the only gays in the village', but also the only gays in Greece.

This is pretty inexcusable.  It changes the relationships as much as the truly disturbing Troy solution - "Woah, we can't have two men kissing in an action film.  So how are we going to make sure that doesn't happen?  I know!  Let's make them cousins!"

It also makes the elements of heterosexual sex feel extremely weird.  And it would seem that there's more of that to come.

There are other modern moralities that really mess with the meaning of the story.  Patroclus and Achilles 'saving' women from a life of rape and slavery is a prime example.  I can understand why you'd do that...but it's an ancient story.  Your main character is a sulky brute who brings about the doom of his comrades because he's upset about a slave girl being taken because that reflects badly on his status not because of some kind of humanitarianism.  He's not compatible with the modern idea of hero.  But either you need to accept that and move on, or at least rewrite him properly.

The Iliad is a story about the universality of war and the experience of death.  It is also, in the wise words of Dr Nick Lowe, a book that tells you all you need to know about men.  All of this is gone.  The fighting is, thus far, the most competently written part of the book.  But it is neither interesting nor meaningful.  The motives of the characters are lost.  How can Achilles be sulky about a wound to his pride when, presumably, he'll be upset because a woman who is treated as free and meaningful is stolen?  How can his great decision (fame or life) be understood as the foundation of his entire existence when it's replaced with some third rate romantic obligation?

Why on earth did it win the Orange Prize?  Deb feels that it's down to the Classical themes combined with a study of a homosexual relationship.  I don't know.  I'm just horrified.  I just hope that people go on from The Song of Achilles to actually read the Iliad and realise what the true meaning of war and love is.